


Vigilant

by coaldustcanary



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Children, F/M, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22683376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaldustcanary/pseuds/coaldustcanary
Summary: In the long dark of an evening, Jaime Lannister kept a vigil.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 8
Kudos: 122
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Vigilant

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Syksy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syksy/gifts).



> GRRM is unlikely to oblige us, but I hope they have something of a happily ever after, too.

In the long dark of an evening, Jaime Lannister kept a vigil.

He kept them before many times in his life, both in service to his knightly vows (for whatever they were worth) as well as in his own selfish interests. He stood by and stood guard many times as Aerys terrorized Rhaella, and as the king's pyromancers had burned his enemies, often on the same insufferably long nights. He waited with practiced patience many more nights yet for Robert to pass out drunk and for Cersei's summons to follow. He kept the traditional watch, excited and eager, through the full night before he was knighted. And he stood, filled with recrimination and uncertainty, over his dead father's stinking bier what felt like a lifetime later.

Though he'd once kept watch in silence while kneeling on cold sept flagstones, and other times been deafened by screams while his skin prickled with heat, this was a vigil of a different sort. The room was warm, the fire in the hearth low but well-tended, casting dim light along walls hung with tapestries and windows shuttered against the chill. A cold winter's rain fell steadily, drumming rhythmically against stone and slate, and the ever-present rushing of the ocean swelled the soft noise into a muted roar.

Tucked securely into the crook of his arm, the infant slept soundly, blissfully unaware of her father's drifting thoughts and fragmented memories dragged to the fore by her arrival into this world. Jaime had spent the first days and nights of her existence marveling at her, full of all due and appropriate awe for this tiny being. What felt like a lifetime ago he had barely glimpsed Cersei's children- _th_ _eir_ children-after birth and certainly not been permitted to touch them, let alone hold them. But elation gave way grudgingly to exhaustion, and while Brienne slept deeply in the nearby bed, Jaime cradled his daughter close and felt a prickle on the back of his neck-a cold breath of fear.

"I'm quite selfish, you know," he said softly, barely audible, into the fine strands of pale hair just escaping from the child's wrappings. The fear might not be something to be vanquished, but he could warn her of what was to come. "You'll find that out, I'm sure. But to bring you into this world at all, that certainly speaks to it. Your father's selfish nature and your mother's stubborn one, together." Jaime brushed fingertips gently against the blankets swaddling the baby, confirming that they were secure before risking a small adjustment to her position, bringing her more firmly against his chest and carefully adjusting his sitting position with a grunt. He was too soft, these days. And softer still, now.

"Truthfully, that will be the least of what you'll learn of me, eventually," he admitted, voice a bare murmur. "And most of it, even the worst of it, will be true, I'm afraid. Worse yet, there will be those who hold all I've done against you. Even with all that your mother's done that's admirable, good, and true, it won't temper it, not truly. Which is why, you see, I'm the selfish one."

"And I'm the stubborn one." Jaime barely prevented himself from startling, but managed to keep himself still, eyes turning toward the bed. Brienne's voice was rougher even than usual with sleep, but she was most assuredly awake now, her eyes luminous in the low firelight. The soft, rasping noise that escaped Jaime's throat was hardly a laugh, but he flashed his wife a smile nonetheless.

"That is exactly what I've been telling her." Brienne's rough hum of agreement was more of a growl, and her eyes drifted closed once more. Jaime almost believed her asleep again before the silence was disturbed softly once more.

"We're all of us selfish, to bring a child into this world," Brienne said softly. "You no more than I. But more than that. She's for tomorrow, the hope there will _be_ one."

"She is very small, to carry such a heavy expectation atop all the other burdens." He cannot help himself from saying it, though his hand curves to cradle the child's tiny head even as he whispers it. Brienne's lips curl in a smile.

"It's true. Put the past in the past, Jaime. Enough time later to pick it up again when we must, even for her. But with luck she will take after your charming ways to see her through it." With a final sleepy murmur, Brienne drifted back to sleep, fingers curled in the bedclothes. Jaime deftly reached over to the bed and smoothed the blankets, inching them higher while still balancing the sleeping infant in the crook of his arm, her tiny features lax and untroubled.

"What you'll need in truth is your mother's stubborn nature and strength," Jaime told her softly. "And perhaps just a bit of her ability to find the right person to watch her back when it mattered most. But for now, I suppose, your father will have to do." The infant sighed softly, burrowing into his chest, and Jaime maintained his watch.


End file.
